You are already well equipped to productively read this wonderful book. You don’t have to understand it all to get something out of it. If you are able to immerse yourself in it and stand in awe of the Victorious Lamb, you are doing well.

There’s a saying I’m kinda fond of, though it’s not very sophisticated: “the beginning of things tells you stuff.” The idea is that writers tend to show their readers how to engage with and appropriate their work within the opening lines of their work. I’ve written about that elsewhere, and it’s true for most works, both ancient and modern, but it’s especially true of Revelation.
There is so much we learn about the book in the first few verses. Moreover, what we learn in that short space has a systemic impact on how we interpret the book. Revelation seems so difficult and confusing, but John has actually given us firm footholds in the opening of his letter. He’s guiding his readers in how Revelation is to be read.
Here’s an incomplete and “in brief” list of some of the essentials.

Jesus is the first recipient of Revelation, not John. Most English Bibles title the book “The Revelation to John,” but that’s only partially correct. This is actually the very first thing that John tells us. This book constitutes “the revelation” that “God gave to him” (1:1), and the “him” in that clause can’t be anyone other than “Jesus Christ.” The verse goes on to explain how this book got into John’s hands. The Father first gave it to Jesus (and you can read about that in Rev. 5), then Jesus passed it along to John via an Angel, and John in turn wrote it down and sent it to the churches (Rev. 1:2). There’s a lot to unpack here, but remember when Jesus told the disciples that “not even the Son of Man knows the day or the hour” (Mark 13:32)? Well, the obvious next question is: when will that information be disclosed? Revelation is that disclosure, and it was disclosed first to the only one accounted worthy (Rev. 5:9). Then, and marvel at this my friends, the one worthy chose to disclose all these things to us (Rev. 1:19).
The first form of this Revelation was seen, not imagined, written, read, or heard. We haven’t left the first two verses yet. Revelation is “shown” to Jesus, then to John, then to the church. The first and primary iteration by which the Father revealed these things is through visions.
By contrast, the church at large only receives Revelation in its written form (1:19 again), not its visual form. John “writes what he saw.” The writing down of that which was first seen involves a kind of “conversion” of media. We’re moving from the visual, to the verbal. This in itself has multiple implications. Here’s two:

First, we can note that communicating information visually and communicating information verbally require different skillsets. How do you “novelize” a movie? How do you describe the impact that a personal experience to friends without lamely concluding “you just had to be there?” It’s tough, and it requires a lot of artistic and literary and story-telling skill. John has those skills (he wrote a Gospel!), and he uses them to “show” the church what he saw.
Second, and equally importantly, there is a corresponding burden on the reader to now “recreate” the vision from the written word. John is supposed to write what he sees. The reader, in their turn, is supposed to “see” what is written. There’s a burden on both writer and reader here. Our burden is to visualize the word written. You have a ready tool for this, given to you by God. It’s called the “imagination.” Use it.

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Don’t let the eloquent voices of our culture make you doubt your faith. There is no magical argument that disproves Christianity. For many generations, people have claimed that it is foolish to trust in Jesus who died and rose again. They have based this view on their understanding of science, on their philosophical positions, and on their personal preference to be free of some higher authority. Yet there is no killer argument that disproves our faith. There cannot be one, for what Christians believe is true. The message of the gospel is uncomplicated. It is simple enough that small children can understand it.

The Assyrian army threatened the city of Jerusalem in 2 Kings 18. A great army massed outside the walls and a spokesperson (with the memorable title of the Rabshakeh) came out to speak to the people of Judah. This man was clearly educated and clever. The Rabshakeh spoke to the official delegates of the king and to the common people in their own language. And his speeches are eloquent, full of rhetoric and repetition, convincingly putting his case across.
The message of the Rabshakeh was clear: you should surrender to Assyria. Don’t believe that King Hezekiah or your God or your own strength can save you, for they cannot do it. No other nation has been able to resist Assyria, and you are no different. You face certain ruin, so save yourselves now.
This reminds us of the eloquent voices of our own culture. There are spokespeople like Richard Dawkins and Stephen Fry who use any opportunity to mock Christianity as being ridiculous. University professors write books against our faith and television writers and producers present a vision for the world without God in it. This message is put forward with cleverness and force. At times, we might even wonder if we have chosen the right side. All the power and eloquence of this world seems to be united against our faith.
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Family is wonderful. It can also, at times, be volatile. Establish a regular rhythm of prayer together as a family. This can be as easy as praying at mealtimes. This regular rhythm, even if it is only at one meal a day, gives us an opportunity to go before the Lord whenever inevitable tensions arise. When a fight has just broken out, Jesus calls us to be reconciled. One way to clear the air is to ask for help in prayer. Something about the ordinariness of a mealtime prayer of thanksgiving makes such requests surprising but, most importantly, ordinary.

Parents are parables. Our lives tell stories to our children. The great gospel story that we hope our lives will tell is one of forgiveness. God forgives us in Christ, and a living witness of God’s forgiveness is a heart of forgiveness in us—a heart that not only receives, but gives. We must begin teaching our children about forgiveness with the gospel, but we must also become parables of forgiveness for them with our lives.
One of the most striking parables about forgiveness is told in the negative: the parable of the unforgiving servant. In the parable, a servant who owes much is forgiven much, only to turn around and demand from another the relatively little that was owed to him (see Matt. 18:21–35). This parable stresses how incongruous it is for the forgiven not to forgive, but the fact that Jesus stresses such an incongruity implicitly teaches us that we first become forgivers by being forgiven. That is why we teach forgiveness to our children by starting with the good news that we are forgiven because of the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ.
The Heidelberg Catechism in its exposition of the Apostles’ Creed helps us understand the extent of our forgiveness in the gospel:

What do you believe concerning “the forgiveness of sins”?A. I believe that God,because of Christ’s satisfaction,will no longer rememberany of my sinsor my sinful naturewhich I need to struggle against all my life.Rather, by his graceGod grants me the righteousness of Christthat I may never come into judgment. (Q&A 56)

As outlined here, our forgiveness is lavish—secured in Christ and forever. The next lesson for our children is that if this is our forgiveness in the gospel, then so it should be when it comes to our forgiveness of others.
We teach our children that their forgiveness of others should look like their own:

Our forgiveness should be because of Christ, in honor of Him, just as God forgives us “because of Christ’s satisfaction.”

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